Travel Questions Answered: September 2011

Travel Questions Answered: September 2011

2011-09-04 10:17:05-04

Here we go with this month’s installment of the Travel Questions Answered series. The goal of this series is to share my responses to many of the emails I receive from readers just in case more of you may have the very same questions on your mind.

This month’s questions focus on such topics as saving money, travel motivation, safety in Mexico, traveling with a laptop, where to obtain visa information and carrying a sleeping bag while on the road…

Let’s get started!

1. I have a chance to stay at home for the next three months and save $2000 more before traveling, or I could just take the money I have now and start my journey. My gut tells me that if I want to start living life to the fullest, then I should take the jump now and go. But more money would help me travel for longer…..any ideas?

That’s always a tough decision to make. I would usually say that taking the jump now and starting your travels, without worrying about how much money you have in the bank, is the way to go. However, the main reason I say that is because it is quite common for those three months of extra work to turn into six months and then turn into one year and on and on. In the end, the allure of a steady paycheck keeps many people from achieving their goals in life, so if they don’t take that step and start traveling immediately, they may never take that step at all.

On the other hand, if you are confident that you are definitely going to travel once those three months of extra work are complete, then it might not hurt to stay at home and save up that additional money before beginning your adventure. But again, if you feel that you might lose your desire to travel if you don’t leave now, then I would just pack up and leave right away!

The reason I continue traveling is because I have become fully addicted to the education that such travel provides. As soon as I realized that visiting and trying to understand places and people and cultures with my very own eyes offered a way to learn about the world that could not be matched by listening to the media, reading books or even taking classes, I knew that I needed to educate myself as much as possible.

And so, my goal has always been to learn and to then share that knowledge with others in order to hopefully help eliminate many of the misunderstandings and assumptions that we hold about our fellow human beings around the world.

I really don’t care much for the main sights or popular attractions. In fact, I’m perfectly happy traveling in any country as I’m more interested in the human interactions that take place than I am taking photos or visiting museums. And those human interactions are something that I look forward to so much that I want to continue traveling and having such unique, educational experiences for as long as I can.

I can honestly state that I have not heard about or seen any drug-related violence (or any violence for that matter) in Playa del Carmen during the 18 months or so that I lived there. Playa del Carmen and the surrounding region is actually experiencing a major increase in tourism levels this year and there is simply no way that tourists would be flocking there if there was any violence or threat of violence.

And it’s not that big of a town (100,000 people) so if such danger existed, I believe that I would certainly have known about it. But in reality, I, and all of my friends, both locals and foreigners alike, would often talk about how safe the town was and how we would never hesitate to wander around any neighborhood, even in the middle of the night. There’s definitely a reason why so many people living in Playa like to tell others that it is âthe best place to live in Mexicoâ!

I absolutely love my Acer Aspire Timeline X 1830T-6651. It’s fast with it’s i5 processor, it has 500 GB of storage, 4 GB of RAM and it can handle every program I use with ease. The 11.6″ screen is more than sufficient for me as everything fits on the screen without problems and without being cut off at all. Also, despite my laptop’s small size, it has a full size keyboard which makes a huge difference.

I also looked at the Mac Air and while that is quite a tempting machine, I just prefer not to travel around with something so expensive. Also, if my $600 Acer works so perfectly well, then I don’t see any reason to change. After all, this is now my second Acer 11.6â laptop (I spilled lemonade all over my last Acer which is why I bought a new one) and I have nothing to complain about at all.

As for whether or not to bring a computer, I’d say it all depends on how serious you will take your blogging. If it’s solely for fun and to keep family and friends (and maybe some strangers) up to date with your travels, then an iPad or using internet cafes would be fine. However, if you’re planning to try and create a more serious travel blog by increasing your following and readership and attempting to make a name for yourself, then I highly recommend taking a laptop with you.

While internet cafes are plentiful in most countries, working on creating a more serious blog takes a huge time commitment and so it just isn’t feasible to spend so many hours in an internet cafe. With your own laptop you’d be able to write posts at night from your hotel/hostel room and even take advantage of free Wi-fi, something that is more common around the world than you might think.

Of course, you also don’t want to fall into the trap of spending all of your time on your laptop! And this is where the dilemma lies. In order to build a blog, you need to spend a great deal of time on it, but it’s hard to justify spending such a large amount of time on a laptop while in the midst of exploring such new and exciting regions of the world.

All I do is visit the US State Department’s “Americans Traveling Abroad” website which lists the visa requirements (alphabetically by country) for US citizens traveling internationally. You simply click on the country you plan to travel to, scroll down to the âVisa Requirementsâ paragraph and see what it has to say. If you’re able to obtain a visa upon arrival, then you don’t need to do much else. If you need to obtain a visa for a particular county before you arrive, then just follow the link to the Embassy’s website where you’ll find the instructions you need to follow.

And even if you need to obtain a visa before arrival, you can almost always obtain such a visa while overseas. For example, I often get my visa for India from the Indian consulate in Chiang Mai, Thailand and I’ve also applied for and received a 3-month visa for Indonesia from the Indonesian consulate in Melbourne, Australia. You are generally not required to obtain visas from your home country (with a few exceptions of course).

For non-US citizens, you should also be able to find a website run by your own government that lists the visa requirements for you to travel abroad. Usually, such sites are kept fully up-to-date and offer the most reliable information about visas that you’ll find anywhere.

In twelve years of traveling, I have never carried a sleeping bag. I would say that if your travel plans are based around camping or you plan to do a significant amount of camping, a sleeping bag would definitely be worthwhile. But if you plan to sleep in hostels, guesthouse and hotels, you really don’t need to carry around a bulky sleeping bag.

If you want to take something to use on the beds you sleep in, consider purchasing something that is super-thin and lightweight such as a travel sleep sack or even a large sarong (which is what I carry). These items not only perform well as sheets and blankets but they are much cheaper than a sleeping bag and they take up almost no space at all in your backpack or luggage.